Daphne Native Linked To Al-Qaeda Terrorists

DAPHNE, Alabama - A Daphne native and former South Alabama student has been linked to Al-Qaeda terrorists. According to published reports, Omar Hammami has been indicted by a grand jury in Mobile on charges of providing material support to terrorists.

Hammami is the man seen in the recruiting video on the right. It's for a group called Al-Shabaab which has ties to Al-Qaeda and was labeled a terrorist organization by the U.S. Government last year.

He now goes by the name Abu Mansour Al-Amriki, or "The American."

News 5 contacted the U.S. Attorney's Office which declined to comment. But we have learned the FBI has been investigating Hammami for years.

The recruiting video is believed to have been shot in Somalia.

Hammami's mother tells News 5 the family lost contact with him about four years ago. She says he was a sweet, loving kid and she's worried about him.

A Baldwin County Schools spokesman says Hammami withdrew from Daphne High School after his Junior year in the spring of 2001.

2000 Yearbook Photo

News 5 talked to Hammami a few weeks after 9/11. At that time he was a freshman at South Alabama and the president of the school's Muslim Student Association.

He told the student newspaper that it was a "difficult to believe a Muslim could have done this."

News 5 will have much more on this story tonight on News 5 at 5:00 and 6:00, including interviews with people who knew Hammami long before he was an accused terrorist.